Market politics

[wdolson]

There was a transport network for Lend-Lease aircraft going to the USSR that started in Montana, flew them up through Canada and Alaska to Nome, then flew them across the Bering Straits to the Soviet Union. Soviets were seen getting off aircraft in Montana, disappearing for weeks, then returning to fly back to Russia. There was some evidence these were industrial spies collecting information on how the US made things. When Roosevelt was made aware of it, he sluffed it off. Churchill also thought Roosevelt caved in to Stalin's demands too much.

Churchill was a well known anti-communist before the war. When Hitler invaded the Soviet Union he said "If Hitler invaded Hell, I would at least make a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons".

Both Roosevelt and Churchill dragged their feet about opening a second front in western Europe as long as possible because of the practical issue of logistics. The Soviet Union's war with Germany was a land war and the logistics of engaging the enemy were much simpler than land combat for the Western Allies. Amphibious invasions are probably the most complex thing to get right in warfare and the deeper the enemy's territory, the tougher the job. An island is over except the shouting if you can get the troops onshore initially, can isolate the island, and can keep the troops supplied while fighting is going on. Tough but doable with a good navy.

Invading a large land mass has all those problems with the added problem that the enemy can bring in reinforcements and it's a lot harder to stop them. Invading French North Africa was about as difficult as invading an island because the French did not have a lot of resources to resist the landing and the Vichy French allegiance to Germany was iffy to being with.

Churchill thought invading Italy would be the way onto the continent, but the same thing that allowed the Allies to get ashore and established is the same thing that allowed the Germans to bottle them up. Italy is a relatively narrow peninsula with a poor road and rail network compared to Northern Europe) at the time. It's also very mountainous.

The Allies were able to quickly take Sicily and the boot of Italy, then Anzio was pulled off with big surprise, but because of the Germans were able to scramble and bottle up the Allies on the Anzio beachhead for months. It was called the largest prison camp in Europe. The Germans were also able to fortify their entire position and keep the Allies from gaining much ground for a long time. The Allies didn't really move up Italy until Germany was on the verge of collapse.

Stalin was frustrated because he knew the US had a very large force in the UK and the Commonwealth also had many divisions there long after the threat of German invasion was gone. It seemed like it was taking forever for the Allies to pull off the cross channel invasion and he thought they were just trying to bleed out the USSR a bit more.

But the invasion of France could only be tried once and it had to work perfectly. The odds of success on the day were long enough Eisenhower had already written his resignation letter. As it was the Germans managed to bottle up the Allies on a narrow beachhead until mid-August. It took a large scale battlefield bombing by the 8th AF B-17s to effect the breakout. The German survivors said it was the most terrifying bombardment they ever experienced.

Another thing that helped the breakout was Operation Bagration, which is little known in the west but was one of the biggest offensives in world history. It was timed to pin down as many Germans as possible on the Eastern Front to help the Allies breakout. It's estimated the Germans took around 1/2 million casualties in a period of a few weeks. If the Russians hadn't run out of supply, they could have gone straight to Berlin with no resistance. Of the 47 German division or corps commanders, 31 were killed or captured and Army Group Center completely collapsed. The German losses were on par with Stalingrad, but over a front extending from Estonia to Rumania.

That crisis caused a massive reinforcement shortage on the Western Front and in the west the Germans pulled back to German territory as quickly as possible to try and regroup.

The US had a lot of communist sympathizers among the left before the war and they were favorable towards the USSR during the war. But the rape of Eastern Europe after the war was hard to hide and most of the communist sympathizers realized that communism in action was a pretty brutal thing. Though realistically it was a combination of the way Russians have always fought with a very deep grudge against the Germans for what they did to Russia. You don't mess with Mother Russia.

 

[lolachampcar]

From the start of e-mail through Hillary Clinton's time as Secretary of State, all Secretaries used their own e-mail because the State Department's e-mail system was so badly designed. Colin Powell had a commercial domain email account. Hillary Clinton's was the most secure any Secretary had up to that point. There is no evidence her private email server was hacked after multiple investigations.

Hillary Clinton did mix private and State Department business on one email because she's a technophobe and the best they could do was get her using one email address on one device (a Blackberry). She would freeze up using anything else.

While Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State Congress passed a law requiring the Secretary to only use government email servers for government business.

Bill Clinton's extramarital affairs do not win him husband of the year, but all the proven instances were consensual. He was accused of non-consensual instances, but those cases were never proven. Instances like his thing with Monica Lewinsky was very inappropriate because he was her boss as well as cheating on his wife, but it was consensual.

There is a very strong case that Trump's people have had a private server that was not very secure used as a back channel with Russia and other countries. Trump regularly uses an insecure cell phone and it's come out the Chinese and Russians listen to everything. The GW Bush administration regularly did government business through RNC email to avoid the Presidential Records Act, which was clearly illegal at the time.

And as far as sexual impropriety goes, Donald Trump has a long list of inappropriate sexual allegations going back decades. Little has been proven yet, but the claims of inappropriate and non-consensual sexual behavior on the part of Trump are significantly more than were ever thrown at Bill Clinton.

This is an example of false equivalency. The Clintons are not saints and have done some things wrong. Everything they have done has been investigated thoroughly by special prosecutors, Congress, the FBI, as well as the media. The only hard evidence any of these investigations has turned up has not once risen to the level of a crime beyond the possibility that Bill Clinton lied about the nature of his relationship with Monica Lewinsky under oath. And there the judge had ruled on the definition of "sexual relations" and what Clinton did with Lewinsky did not meet that criteria.

In a little over 2 years of investigation Robert Mueller has already gotten a number of people to plead to crimes committed for Donald Trump's benefit and one indirectly named Trump as a co-conspirator in his plea.

Here is a list of federal politicians convicted of crimes by administration:
List of American federal politicians convicted of crimes - Wikipedia

Look at people convicted in the Executive Branch by administration. Democrats have had a few here and there, but Republicans have had significantly more Executive Branch people convicted of crimes than Democrats. The last Republican administration to have zero Executive Branch convictions was Dwight Eisenhower. Since then John F Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Jimmy Carter had none.Bill Clinton had 2 and Barack Obama 1 (David Petraeus).

Democrats in Congress have been found guilty of crimes. The corruption is not one sided. However when the Executive Branch is being run by Democrats, there does appear to be less corruption. This despite Kenneth Starr investigating everything Clinton for most of his term in office and the Benghazi Committee in the House investigating Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration in general for years.

In any case, while the money in politics is a problem for us and it corrupts Democrats and Republicans, the lunacy in the White House is a far more serious problem. Up until 2017 the problem was draining the swamp. The swamp is currently on fire and we need to put out the fire before draining the swamp. One party is trying to fight the fire, the other is either standing by and watching it burn, or they are actively pumping in petrochemicals to feed the fire.

If the fire isn't put out soon, money in politics won't matter because the constitutional government will be irreparably broken.

You're a smart person but you are falling for the Rove/Carvelle look at the birdie. Yes, there is no equivalency between Trump in Hillary but both are not acceptable for public service. Accepting one as better is ok if that is all you have to choose from. I likely made the same choice as you albeit likely not for the same reasons. The problem for me is that neither should have gotten anywhere near being one of the two finalists. As long as you continue to defend the indefensible (according to me, of course), you've lost the game as you have accepted corrupt government.

 

[JRP3]

I'm sure there is corruption in all governments, but there are different levels of corruption, which is the main point. All governments are made up of people, and in any group of people some will be more honest than others.

 

[neroden]

You keep wanting to debate the relative merits of one side verses the other. Feel free to do so but if "your" side "wins" we still have ever increasing debt and the moral decadence of things like Bill and Hillary's destruction of women's lives who dare speak of Bill's indiscretions or Hillary's intentional avoidance of compliance with preservation of communication by using a private email server. Neither is illegal but I find both disqualifying for public service (along with Kavanaugh's behavior and lack of truthfulness).

Just FYI, every previous Secretary of State also used a private email server, until you get back so far that they didn't use email. Condoleeza Rice did, for instance, as did Colin Powell. Clinton's system was actually more secure than the incredibly awful governmental system. (Which is the tip of the iceberg of another problem, but that's drifting even further off topic...)

If it would help, your side seems to be a little less bad then the other side along with being a little less competent (as in, they are not as good at being bad).

I stand by my position that, until we all decide that nothing that is going on is acceptable, nothing will change.

We missed a great opportunity in Al Gore, who is honorable and virtuous. The country voted for him (barely!), but it was stolen.

And that's the bottom line for me: I can accept bad government if the people actually voted for it (you get what you deserve!), but when the elections are stolen, that's unacceptable to me.

Likewise, I can accept court rulings I disagree with if they're based on law and precedent and are fair-minded. But once the rule of law is replaced with "the judges vote for the Republicans, but against the Democrats in otherwise-identical cases, because they're blatantly biased" -- as already happened with "Bush v. Gore" -- then it's time to replace the court system. Fake judges are worse than no judges at all.

The Florida Supreme Court got the Bush v. Gore case right: they said "count all the votes". The five criminals pretending to be judges on the US Supreme Court proceeded to destroy the credibility of the entire US court system by ordering that the votes not be counted -- and the four judges on the US Supreme Court knew it and pointed it out.

 

[Intl Professor]

This belongs here, not where I found it. Also, any responses;

TSLA Market Action: 2018 Investor Roundtable

 

[UnknownSoldier]

This belongs here, not where I found it. Also, any responses;

TSLA Market Action: 2018 Investor Roundtable

I guess it's crazy that I randomly commented about how Merkel's days were numbered in a post that led up to this one and then the very next day she announced she was finally stepping down as Chancellor after 13 years leading Germany. That's one hell of a coincidence.

I wonder how she will be remembered. As the last great lion of the neoliberal consensus, the day she walks off the stage the last time will be an important day in modern history. Her policies directly led to the rise of AfD inside Germany itself, plus the rise of populism in EU countries Germany bullied with austerity measures including Italy, Spain, and of course poor Greece. She was one of the world leaders who publicly stood up to Trump and Putin but in the end the populists encircled her, from Poland and Hungary in the East to Spain in the West and Italy and Greece in the South. Her aggressive bullying of other EU nations ultimately led to the long-Euroskeptic UK to become completely fed up and vote to leave.

Now only Macron remains. One wonders how long he can maintain his base of power now that he is alone.

 

[EVNow]

He doesn't actually have any real ideology except himself. His one and only talent is as a certain type of con-man/salesman.

Except one thing. He is genuinely racist. From the Central Park 6 and discriminatory lending practices to this day, he has not changed much from his father’s kkk days.

 

[wdolson]

Except one thing. He is genuinely racist. From the Central Park 6 and discriminatory lending practices to this day, he has not changed much from his father’s kkk days.

His father clearly was. Donald is driven by a lot of fear and prejudice and he does seem to think non-white people are out to get him. However on the flip side he will luxuriate in praise from anyone regardless of skin color.

Right wing politics in general can be difficult to tell the racism/sexism/homophobia from whatever the right wing fear mongers are using to keep the base afraid. My SO an I have had a debate for years about how much of the right's hate for Obama is because he's black and how much is because he's a Democrat. There is definitely both there. For some people on the right, racism is the driving force of their animus, but for many others are the right, racism was just the tool they used to get other conservatives worked up.

I watched the right wing media as Obama emerged as the nominee in 2008. They threw all sorts of things against the wall to see what would stick and "foreign" is what they settled on. They first tried to paint Obama with the same memes as Bill and Hillary, but that didn't work. Then they tried the crazy reverend approach and that didn't work. Finally what stuck was the idea he really wasn't American because his father was from Africa and he had a middle name that was the same as a Middle Eastern bad guy's last name. The foreign bit didn't really make any sense if you looked at it with any kind of critical eye. But that's what the base bought to hate him and that's what the right wing propaganda machine went with.

Trump got a lot of traction in the right wing bubble from the whole birth certificate thing and he has a natural instinct for what divides people. He likes conflict, so he likes punching whatever buttons work people up. However the Central Park 6 thing does indicate the racism goes back a long ways. I don't know how much of the discriminatory renting practices had to do with his father and how much with Don. His father was definitely still running the show for the most part when they got nailed for that stuff. Don was definitely involved though.

Like the Republican propaganda machine, it's a mix of real prejudice and faux outrage to get people worked up, but we'll probably never know if it's 50/50, 10/90, or 90/10.

 

[lolachampcar]

Is it any surprise that our nation's response to its first black president is the clown from the apprentice? The black community in the US (as well as other minority communities) were all to well aware of the racism that churned beneath the surface in the US so they are likely not surprised. The next few years will define us for decades to come.

This basket of deplorables (I know, I'm using her words) or Butt Crack Joes as I prefer to call them, need to read up on their apartheid history. They've already lost this battle; the only question is how much damage are they going to do going out the door?

 

[EVNow]

This basket of deplorables (I know, I'm using her words) or Butt Crack Joes as I prefer to call them, need to read up on their apartheid history. They've already lost this battle; the only question is how much damage are they going to do going out the door?

While we all point our fingers at non-college educated white men - who support Trump in large numbers, don't lose sight of the fact that a majority of college educated men (and non-college educated women) support Trump. Yes, that smart looking guy driving the BMW is probably racist. Its because of such guys the institutional racism (or what some call soft bigotry) won't go away anytime soon.

The funniest thing is - people get all riled up when called racist. Its as if being called racist is somehow worse than actually being racist.

 

[UnknownSoldier]

The election of Trump is part of an ongoing world-wide blanket rejection of the decades of neoliberal consensus.

Thinking too deeply about Trump himself completely misses the actual populist wave currently sweeping the world. It's missing the forest for the trees.

Only the really hardcore Trump supporters, which are not very many, actually care that much about the guy. All the rest were just rejecting Hillary and the continuation of neoliberalism.

Brexit also happened, and populist politicians took power in countries in every continent. Trump isn't the disease but he is a symptom. The latest symptom is Jair Bolsonaro.

 

[Wooloomooloo]

Except one thing. He is genuinely racist. From the Central Park 6 and discriminatory lending practices to this day, he has not changed much from his father’s kkk days.

That doesn't differentiate him from a lot of other politicians in Congress, unless you replace "genuinely" with "openly".

 

[Wooloomooloo]

The election of Trump is part of an ongoing world-wide blanket rejection of the decades of neoliberal consensus.

Thinking too deeply about Trump himself completely misses the actual populist wave currently sweeping the world. It's missing the forest for the trees.

Only the really hardcore Trump supporters, which are not very many, actually care that much about the guy. All the rest were just rejecting Hillary and the continuation of neoliberalism.

Brexit also happened, and populist politicians took power in countries in every continent. Trump isn't the disease but he is a symptom. The latest symptom is Jair Bolsonaro.

I agree in spirit, but most people "rejecting the neo-liberal consensus" don't know what they're actually rejecting. What they're saying is "we know things are screwed up, so we're going to vote the establishment out". That might sounds like a difference within a distinction (although it's not) but people are certainly not voting for the outcomes that inevitable from this political and cultural upheaval.

BTW - you remind me of someone who used to post over at Futuremark...

 

[UnknownSoldier]

I agree in spirit, but most people "rejecting the neo-liberal consensus" don't know what they're actually rejecting. What they're saying is "we know things are screwed up, so we're going to vote the establishment out". That might sounds like a difference within a distinction (although it's not) but people are certainly not voting for the outcomes that inevitable from this political and cultural upheaval.

BTW - you remind me of someone who used to post over at Futuremark...

"Democracy is the worst political system, except for all those other systems."
- Winston Churchill

You're right that most of these people have no idea what they are voting for but if you continue to ignore the problem it will not go away. The populist wave is a direct response to the growing inequality in every nation on Earth caused by neoliberal economics the past half century. The only significant European nation left now that Merkel is stepping down which still has a neoliberal in power is France and it's not clear how much longer that will last.

Taking the example of Brazil, that country is in a deep economic depression, crime is rampant, there were over 68,000 people murdered there last year. The people are desperate and the only options they were presented with were "more of the same" (the guy appointed by Lula) and "burn it all to the ground" (Bolsonaro). By a 55% to 45% margin, those chose "burn it all to the ground". So what is your solution? Tell people to keep voting for "more of the same"? Because Brazil wasn't having any of that. Maybe it's time to think of new solutions.

I've never been to Futuremark. I'm pretty sure I have a copy of 3DMark installed on my computer though.

 

[Wooloomooloo]

You're right that most of these people have no idea what they are voting for but if you continue to ignore the problem it will not go away. The populist wave is a direct response to the growing inequality in every nation on Earth caused by neoliberal economics the past half century. The only significant European nation left now that Merkel is stepping down which still has a neoliberal in power is France and it's not clear how much longer that will last.

We don't know who will replace Merkel and it's highly unlikely that Germany will elect some populist freak as Chancellor given the representative nature of their government (proportional representation). Without triggering anyone, I think it has to be said that the United States' democratic system for electing government, is extremely flawed and immature. The 'populist wave' is grossly overstated.

Trump lost the popular vote, by a huge margin (so did Bush Jnr.) Populist conservatives in the Senate are grossly over-represented because WY and ND are 'equal' to California and NY. Gerrymandering has ensured the House has been packed full of partisans for years (both sides have been guilty of this) and Governorships have drifted to the right, thanks to voter suppression. Trump won because of 80k odd votes in a few states, but lost the popular bote by over 3m, so it would seem our 'populist' president is far from popular. In fact, the American people as a whole, are far more liberal than the people who appear to 'represent' them - there is no populist wave here.

Now if you contrast that with what happened in Brasil and what happened in Venezuela, Argentina, Hungary, Austria and some others, where populist leaders were actually elected by waves of poor and disenfranchised people, the phenomena is different. In addition, those countries have been back and forth left and right, for decades, so this isn't 'new' or some sudden change.

The real danger in America (which no one is addressing) isn't a crazy president, it's unchecked corporate power - but that was a problem under Obama, Bush and Clinton. It isn't new under Trump.

 

[UnknownSoldier]

Well I mean if your response to what I said was "it's not real" and deny everything then I can't really have much of a discussion with you. So we'll leave it at that. Let's see who Germany elects as their next Chancellor I guess. There's still some years to go until Merkel actually leaves.

 

[Wooloomooloo]

Well I mean if your response to what I said was "it's not real" and deny everything then I can't really have much of a discussion with you. So we'll leave it at that.

I didn't say that at all, I said that the phenomena in the US is different from what is going on elsewhere. Trump may pander to populist tropes, he may even be kicked out by a true populist on the left (although I doubt it) but he isn't the result of populism or even a symptom of it, in my opinion of course.

 

[UnknownSoldier]

I didn't say that at all, I said that the phenomena in the US is different from what is going on elsewhere. Trump may pander to populist tropes, he may even be kicked out by a true populist on the left (although I doubt it) but he isn't the result of populism or even a symptom of it, in my opinion of course.

He is absolutely the result of populism or a symptom of it. The Rust Belt didn't all decide one day they had become Republicans when they had been reliably Democrats for decades. The sudden turn of many solidly Democratic counties to Trump cannot possibly be hand-waved away like that.

A lot of your other points have a certain degree of validity. It is true that indirect election processes like the electoral college can go against popular vote counts. But the US operates on it's system for a reason. The country's population centers (cities) lean very heavily Democratic, and it's rural areas lean heavily Republican. A true direct vote would ensure the rural areas have absolutely no voice in the country's political process.

Now the current state of affairs with gerrymandering has dramatically skewed the system in one party's favor and this is the result of decades of Republican engineering but it is also very much the fault of the Democrats for being inept enough to let it happen. However, the fundamental idea of a federal system where voting is intentionally held indirect is to prevent waves of populist sentiment from creating wild governmental changes such as seen in Brazil and that system has been effective. For all of his nonsense, Trump has had enormous checks on his attempts to wield power and this is by design. The American system is not without flaws, but if the worst we can do is elect a Trump every now and then, we're still doing better than a lot of other nations.

 

[Wooloomooloo]

He is absolutely the result of populism or a symptom of it. The Rust Belt didn't all decide one day they had become Republicans when they had been reliably Democrats for decades. The sudden turn of many solidly Democratic counties to Trump cannot possibly be hand-waved away like that.

Agreed, but the proportion of people who did that was relatively small compared to the electorate as a whole. Some things about the election have been vastly over stated, mostly because the Dems can't face up to the fact they've failed blue-collar Americans for decades (here I'm agreeing with you now), but this is a far cry from a "global wave of populism rejecting neo-liberal consensus".

Having made that somewhat pedantic point, I'd probably agree with you that either way, the issues people are frustrated with, whether it makes them vote for lunatics or just stops them from voting at all, do need to be addressed urgently.

A lot of your other points have a certain degree of validity. It is true that indirect election processes like the electoral college can go against popular vote counts. But the US operates on it's system for a reason. The country's population centers (cities) lean very heavily Democratic, and it's rural areas lean heavily Republican. A true direct vote would ensure the rural areas have absolutely no voice in the country's political process.

The electoral college was created a long time before the current parties in their current state existed. The political division defined between rural and urban areas actually pertained to slavery, and a little intellectual honesty about this reveals that it was slavery and slave-owners who were being protected, not "the people" by the electoral college. It has no place in 2018... in fact many people were against it from day 1.

Regardless, what we have instead is a system where Republicans effectively have a 9-point advantage before a single vote is counted (that's the estimated national average they have in the House from a standing start). Rural areas are grossly over-represented and arguably have voters who more likely to vote on very narrow issues (that affect a small number of people).

Now the current state of affairs with gerrymandering has dramatically skewed the system in one party's favor and this is the result of decades of Republican engineering but it is also very much the fault of the Democrats for being inept enough to let it happen. However, the fundamental idea of a federal system where voting is intentionally held indirect is to prevent waves of populist sentiment from creating wild governmental changes such as seen in Brazil and that system has been effective. For all of his nonsense, Trump has had enormous checks on his attempts to wield power and this is by design. The American system is not without flaws, but if the worst we can do is elect a Trump every now and then, we're still doing better than a lot of other nations.

Very good points, agreed.

 

[UnknownSoldier]

The electoral college was created a long time before the current parties in their current state existed. The political division defined between rural and urban areas actually pertained to slavery, and a little intellectual honesty about this reveals that it was slavery and slave-owners who were being protected, not "the people" by the electoral college. It has no place in 2018... in fact many people were against it from day 1.

Regardless, what we have instead is a system where Republicans effectively have a 9-point advantage before a single vote is counted (that's the estimated national average they have in the House from a standing start). Rural areas are grossly over-represented and arguably have voters who more likely to vote on very narrow issues (that affect a small number of people).

This is indeed the case. The possibility of a case going before the Supreme Court challenging the legality of the current gerrymandering process is very high, and as of right now the composition of the Court does not appear to be friendly to overturning it. The Republicans have so successfully and blatantly engineered the redistricting process that I think a legal challenge will happen relatively soon. We will see what becomes of the various counties and districts after this. Hopefully progress can be made towards a more neutral and fair drawing of district lines.

A random ironic point: you are correct that the electoral college and the whole argument that led to the infamous "3/5 representation" rule (where a slave was counted as "3/5" of a person for the purposes of representation) was due to the slave owners wanting their slaves to be counted to make their representation larger. The irony here of course is they didn't consider their slaves people...except when it came to making sure they were adequately represented by the new nation's democracy. American history is full of ugly things like this, unfortunately. In the end the bloodiest war in American history in terms of number of lives lost had to be fought to finally put an end to slavery in this country.